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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN WWW.KANSAN.COM | NEWS | WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 2007
CAMPUS
Chief Justice to speak at Lied Center in April 2008
By Susan Schwarz
sschwarz@kansan.com
Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts will visit the University in April 2008 to give a public lecture.
The University announced late last week that Roberts will be the speaker at the Vickers Memorial Lecture in the Lied Center, April 30.
Emily Williams, Overland Park senior who
is currently interning for the National Democratic Party in Washington, D.C., this summer said that Kansas is
Roberts
quickly becoming a political battleground and it is great to see the University bringing in speakers of a higher quality and profile.
Williams said she is looking forward to hearing Roberts's speech because he is likely to speak on something that will affect everyone.
"Political bipartisanship aside, he is making a contribution to our
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Vote in our online poll about Chief Justice Roberts' visit to campus
nation, and we as students of KU should give him a warm reception and honor our university," Williams said.
Williams said the University has many student leaders not only in the democratic and republican parties but in Student Senate as well. Williams said she thought these people will benefit from hearing Chief Roberts speak.
The lecture series is named after a KU alumnus, J.A. Vickers. Toni Dixon, director of communications for the business school, said the unique part about this year's lecture is that it is in cooperation with the School of Law.
Traditionally the School of Business would engage a speaker for the Vickers Memorial Lecture, which started in 1969. Dixon said that Stephen McAllister, professor of law, once worked as a clerk for the Supreme Court and used his connections to help plan the visit.
Dixon said Roberts had to be scheduled a year in advance.
and that the focus was on getting Roberts for the 2008 lecture.
Dixon said the goal of the lecture is to bring important public officials to the University to discuss topics of interest.
The topic Roberts will address has not yet been set, but Dixon said she expected the lecture to appeal to a number of people since the decisions Roberts makes affect them as citizens.
"It is a rare opportunity to hear from someone placed that highly in the judicial system." Dixon said.
Dixon said the business school hopes for a variety of people to attend the lecture and said she expected people in the Kansas City community would want to attend as well.
The lecture will be held in the Lied Center, which seats 2,000. Though the event is free, a ticket will be required for admittance. A certain amount of tickets will be held for both business and law students, but they will become available to the public in 2008 but the exact date has not been announced.
Edited by Ben Smith
in brief
Interim vice provost to take office in August
Steve Warren will become the interim vice provost for research and graduate studies at the University in August.
Warren, who is director of the University's Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies, will replace
Warren
Jim Roberts who is stepping down after 10 years to work full time in his role as professor of electrical engineering. Warren
University in 1999 from Vanderbilt University where he was deputy director of the John F. Kennedy Center for Human Development, a mental retardation research program. He became director of the Life Span Institute in 2001.
Warren
came to the
Roberts came to the University in 1990 as a professor and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He was first the associate vice chancellor and later the associate vice provost for research beginning in 1998 and became the vice provost for research in 2004.
Tyler Harbert
Graduate Studies has new asst.vice provost
The new associate vice provost and dean of graduate studies is Sara Thomas Rosen, professor and
chair of the Department of Linguistics at the University. Her appointment comes after the announced combination
Rosen
of the Lawrence campus Office of
Research and the Graduate School. She will work along with two existing associate vice provosts, George Wilson and Joshua Rosenbloom, and report to the current vice provost for research Jim Roberts.
Rosen came to the University in 1991 as an assistant professor, and in 1996 became an associate professor, then a full professor in 2006 and has been department chair since 2000. Her primary research subject is the relationship between sentence structure and sentence interpretation.
She was a recipient of the J. Michael Young Academic Advising Award at the University in 2002.
Tyler Harbert
Head of minority recruitment returns
Maurice Bryan has returned to the University to head faculty and staff minority recruitment efforts, after serving as the director of equal opportunity for eight years here until 2001.
Bryan will advise the chancellor, provost and other top administrators on diversity and work on the recruitment and retention of under-represented staff and faculty. He will also evaluate the success of current diversity programs and coordinate other multicultural enterprises.
Bryan concentrated on the representation of race and gender within visual culture while earning his doctorate in American Studies this summer at the University. He recently worked for three years at Ottawa University.
Chancellor Robert Hemenway set goals for increasing female and minority faculty 10 years ago, and minority figures have increased 75 percent since, from 200 in 1997 to 350 in 2006. Female faculty has increased by 41 percent since the same time, from 670 to 948 in Fall 2006.
Tyler Harbert